How to Gain S-Off on HTC One XL and One S

If you need to gain S-Off for your HTC One XL or One S handsets, now you can easily perform the same as thanks to those of xda-developers we have the perfect solution for you. Therefore, I will try to teach you how to prepare your device and then how to turn S-Off on your One XL, or One S, all by following an easy to understand and to apply step by step guide. Take note that this is a complex and risky operation, so read everything from this tutorial and try not to mess things up as you can end up in bricking your smartphone.

The S-Off / On term is mostly applied when talking about HTC handsets. Of course as you can already tell, when you first buy a device, it will be delivered with the S turned on. So, the first conclusion to take is that we are dealing with a carrier restriction over your phone’s internal system. Therefore, with the S turned on you will not be able to access the internal files of your device, customize, or optimize the OS, installing custom apps and updating with custom ROMs firmware. As you can see it is quite important to learn how to turn S-Off and unchain your HTC One XL / One S from the factory restrictions.

Now, in order to make it all clear, the above mentioned facts are actually saying that when S are turned on the NAND portion of the device is being locked and it can’t be written to. So, in order to change this you have to gain S-Off and well, that’s possible only by following a suitable step by step guide like the present one. You can learn more about the S term by following our “What is S-Off and How Can you tell if Your Phone Has S-Off / S-On” tutorial. Also, remember that this method (for the HTC One XL and HTC One S) has been developed by those of xda-developers, so for further details check our source page by using the link from here.

Now, as you will make changes on the default settings, it should be clear for you that the warranty will get void. So, in case something bad happens and you will end up in bricking your device, you will be by yourselves. That’s why you must be very careful when applying the steps from below. Anyway, the warranty can be restored as soon as you update your One XL / One S with an official software provided by HTC. Now, further on you should complete the pre requisites from below for preparing your smartphone; else you will not be able to safely gain S-Off.

First of all, your phone must be rooted and have superCID; else you will surely have problems while trying to turn S-Off.

You need to use a computer or notebook.

ADB must be installed on your computer and the fastboot environment must be working on the same.

Backup the data which is being saved on your phone’s internal storage memory. You can use our guides for learning how to save almost everything from your device, so don’t hesitate and use the same.

Your handset must have enough battery life for being able to stay “alive” during the unlock operation; so if you notice that there is less than 60% power left, use the charger.

Uninstall or just deactivate the security programs from your computer and smartphone; these tools might interfere with our work and we don’t want that to happen.

Enable the USB debugging option on your One XL / One S.

Remember that the warranty will get void.

Finally, be careful as the method explained here is being suitable only with the HTC One XL and with the HTC One S. Turning S-Off for the HTC Droid DNA will be explained on a different but similar tutorial. You can now begin the proper guide, meaning that you are almost done; the most difficult part was actually in preparing the phone for the unlocking procedure.

How to Gain S-Off on HTC One XL and One S

On your computer download the required file: for HTC One XL use the link from here (or from here), while for the HTC One S use this link.

Place these files on the same folder as fastboot.

Turn off the handset and reboot it into fastboot mode.

Now, use the USB cable and connect the phone with the computer.

On your computer open a cmd window (go to “Start -> run -> cmd”).

Navigate through the folder where you have saved the downloaded files.

On the command prompt window first enter the command: “adb reboot bootloader”.

Once the bootloader is showed, on cmd type “fastboot oem rebootRUU”.

Now, wait until the black HTC screen will be displayed, and then on the same cmd window enter: “fastboot flash zip ”.

Again, you have to wait for a couple of minutes. At some point the following error message will be displayed: “FAILED (remote: 92 supercid! Please flush image again immediately)”.

Then, you need to type “fastboot oem boot”.

Wait for the handset to boot into Android; don’t press anything and don’t get scared if some error message will be displayed.

After a few second, type “adb reboot bootloader” and you are finally done.

So, what do you say about that, it was hard for you to learn how to gain S-Off on your HTC One S / One XL? Do share your experience with us and with other users who might want to try the above explained procedure by using the comments area from below. Also, tell us if there were issues while trying to complete one of the steps and we will try to do our best in order to resolve the same. That was all for now, but stay close as further step by step guides will be made available for you.

Could you send me the link for the required file for HTC One S please?

https://teamblueridge.org/ insink71

this is the facepalm method; however, beaups nor jcase [developers of said method] are mentioned in this article nor the method name. Bad form.

sdiggly

Note: if you get a FAILED 99 error, then reboot into bootloader the manual may (power and volume down button), switch from hboot to fastboot, and try again. That should allow you to get to 92 error described in the post.